Saturday, December 06, 2008

See naked mole rats here!

...at Disney's Animal Kingdom over Thanksgiving. Nice exhibit except they really don't explain why these mammals are so interesting. What makes them so interesting is that they are the most like social insects of any mammal. See...

www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/614.shtml

Of course maybe the Disney folks would have to then explain why social insects are so important in the tropics in terms of the functioning of tropical ecosystems and how social insect biomass dwarfs that of the charismatic animals they have in Animal KIngdom.

Then they would have to explain why it is that you have to really hunt to even see an ant at any of the theme parks.